Whom Shall I Walk With? Reflections of a Black(ish) South African Scholar in the North American Academy

As scholars and clinicians, we ply our trade and practice our craft as if we were its origin. The truth is, we are always haunted; we keep company with ghosts. They watch over us, and sometimes they breathe into us, which is to say inspire us (in – into + spirare – breathe). After nearly three decades in the North American academy, I reflect on the company I kept with three such scholarly ghosts – Frantz Fanon, Sigmund Freud, and Emmanuel Levinas. Specifically, I share and confess the questions I ask(ed) of them and the sometimes insight they offer(ed) about what it is to negotiate Black and Brown life in a white world. About the question of the foreigner, a foreigner’s question.